


Burning Love

by octopus_fool



Series: Yuletide Cheer [9]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Break Up, M/M, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-05 22:48:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: Sometimes, burning old letters is all you can do. And sometimes, burning old letters does not go the way you want it to.





	Burning Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 3 of [Arda Advent](http://ardaprompts.tumblr.com/post/180626386876/join-me-in-creating-wintery-fanworks-about), the prompt was "fireplace".

Dwalin tore the stack of letters from his pillow. They had been his most precious possessions for quite some time, but now, they had lost all their worth.

_I miss you._

_I’ve been thinking about our last conversation._

_You’d love the sweets here in the Iron Hills. I may have a surprise for you when I get back._

Lies and false hopes. Nothing more.

It had taken Dwalin too long to see it. Not that there had been any actual promises, just enough hints to make Dwalin hope, just enough to make the letters worth hiding. Just like the way their eyes met each other for a moment too long, like the way Thorin’s hand lingered on Dwalin’s for slightly longer when helping him up in the sparing hall. They had to be careful, of course, since it wasn’t something anyone would approve of. And they hadn’t dared to speak yet, still gauging the other’s intents, making sure he really felt the same.

At least that was what Dwalin had thought they had been doing. Because it turned out he was wrong. 

Dwalin scrunched the letters in his hand. He looked at the stove in his room, but decided that watching them burn in the big fireplace would be more satisfying. There was nobody at home anyway.

_”We can’t go on like this. Nothing is ever going to come of it anyway. You know that, right?”_

Dwalin stacked the letters in the fireplace on top of some kindling. Carefully, he placed the damâmnanâg on top of the letters. On an impulse, he had stolen them from Óin’s supplies earlier. After all, the wise said damâmnanâg could take the flames to a deeper level, burn beyond the literal. And Dwalin could imagine nothing more freeing than to have his feelings burnt out of his heart.

Thorin was getting married. That alone wouldn’t have had to mean much. It was expected. But Thorin suddenly wanted to do things properly, and that meant Dwalin was out of the equation, no longer counted. 

The fire striker lay heavy in Dwalin’s hand, but he lit the tinder nevertheless. He placed it amidst the kindling and watched as the letters began to curl at the edges. The stench of singed parchment hit his nose and made his eyes prickle. A hint of a flowers hung at the edges of Dwalin’s senses. He waited for the damâmnanâg to burn their way through his heart, but the anger and hurt remained the same. 

The flames licked higher along the kindling and the parchment blackened and shrivelled. All Thorin’s words, vanishing into the air in acrid smoke. Seeing them burn just deepened the pain.

“Dwalin? What are you doing there?” Dwalin had not counted on his cousin showing up, not today, not yet, but it was clearly Óin’s voice.

Dwalin quickly blinked the smoke from his eyes and turned around to face Óin. 

“Just an experiment, something I considered using for a project at the forge.”

“You should probably save such projects for the forge then, it stinks. And maybe you should consider something else entirely.”

“Yes. I’ve given up the idea.”

“You don’t happen to know where my damâmnanâg went?”

“Your what? What’s that supposed to be?” Dwalin didn’t care about being caught. He didn’t really care about anything anymore, but some responses came automatically after spending years of trying to get away with borrowing Balin’s things.

“Small, red flowers. I had a number of them in a bag in my drawer, but almost half of them are missing.”

“I’ve never seen them, and you know that I’m not at all interested in the things you keep in your drawers, let alone flowers.”

“Good. They aren’t something you’d want to use in one of your forge experiments. Without saying the right words over them, they have a tendency to take things into the destruction that you didn’t mean to burn.”

Dwalin glanced into the fireplace. The kindling had burnt down to a few glowing embers and the damâmnanâg had long since turned to ashes. There was no use in trying to say any words over them anymore. Dwalin could only hope that Óin’s strange rituals were as useless as Dwalin always claimed to believe. 

“Like I said, I don’t make a habit of digging through your things.”

Dwalin woke up expecting something to have gone horribly wrong. His pain had numbed to emptiness, so perhaps the damâmnanâg had at least shown some effect. As soon as he spotted Thorin across the great hall later that day, Dwalin knew that wasn’t the case. Anger and hurt churned in his stomach and Dwalin had to look away. He could still feel Thorin’s eyes on him.

Dwalin expected a catastrophe to happen within a week. Instead, life went on and Dwalin struggled to keep step. The announcements of the prince’s engagement hung everywhere and even though Dwalin tried not to see them, the gossip was inescapable. He avoided Thorin as best he could and Thorin seemed relieved about it.

A month passed and nothing happened. Dwalin still expected to be struck down by a disease or an accident, or to hear about something happening to Thorin.

It was impossible to constantly expect bad news. Dwalin found himself thinking of the burning letters and the destruction he had been warned of less and less often. He still got a nasty jolt every time he saw Thorin or heard about the wedding plans progressing. 

One morning, the wind turned. A storm from the East, ashes and flames. 

In the cold beneath the stars, Dwalin dreamt of red flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> Damâmnanâg means blood-flowers. They are the same cheerful little flowers that the elves call seregon, because I think it would be a shame if they had disappeared with Beleriand. 
> 
> There are still Arda Advent prompts for which I don't have ideas yet, so if there are any slash or femslash pairings (no incest though, sorry!) or Gen combinations you'd like to see, let me know (either in a comment or a tumblr ask, I'm ridiculoussquid) and I'll try to come up with something (Bagginshield and Thorin/Dwalin are planned anyway, so no need to request those)! If you've looked at my stories, you'll know that I mostly write for the Hobbit fandom, but I'm trying to do more LotR and Silmarillion stories too, so I'll also take suggestions for those (just no guarantees).


End file.
